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Devin LeMahieu: “We're going to have a projected two and a half billion…”

Featuring: Devin LeMahieu, Republican | Wisconsin State Senate, District 9

WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu

Published February 20, 2026 | Video Starts at 02:56

So we'll see, see what we can do here. But we'll start, I'll start back with a little history coming into this. So about a month ago, we got the good news that We're going to have a projected two and a half billion dollar surplus at the end of the current budget. rather than the 800 million or so that it was projected when we passed the budget last summer. (02:56–03:01)

CLAIM

Asserts that Wisconsin will have a $2.5 billion surplus at the end of the current budget.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Devin LeMahieu

“There's only been one session in the Senate where every vote has had a majority vote by the party in control over the last 25 years.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 12:48-12:58
“There's no regulation over [sports betting apps] and they're betting on sports.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 24:12-24:17
“We had a 7 billion dollar surplus.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 32:11-32:14
“If you eliminate the income tax altogether, you have to increase sales tax by 4% or so.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 40:27-40:34
“Dane county has all their absentee ballots counted by 2pm in the afternoon and they probably have a higher percentage of absentee voters…”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 50:23-50:35
“We heard a lot from our constituents about property taxes going up last year.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 03:29-03:35
“If we don't eliminate the 400 year veto, [property taxes] are likely going to go up again.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 05:55-06:07
“The best way to use this surplus and to get it in the hands of taxpayers is through income tax rebates.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 06:38-06:46
“We chose a responsible number which is one and a half billion, just shy of 1.5 billion, which still leaves about a billion dollars going…”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 06:45-06:55
“The governor and the speaker are still negotiating and I have not been invited to those negotiations.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 08:02-08:09
“There's been no communication between offices this week.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 10:21-10:24
“If there is some compromise that eliminates the 400 year veto and can provide property tax early to Wisconsin families, I think we could…”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 13:38-13:53
“The Supreme Court took away legislative authority over the buying of private land in the state of Wisconsin.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 15:07-15:15
“There's nothing in state statute [about] THC at all since it's sort of a new product out there.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 15:47-15:56
“Nothing has passed either House. There's competing bills.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 16:58-17:03
“It has not gotten a committee in the assembly either bill, I believe the Senate. There's a Senate bill that got out of committee in the…”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 17:26-17:36
“I'd like to get the money back into the taxpayer's hands.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 18:09-18:13
“Two budgets ago, Wisconsin I came up to us and had a set aside $10 million in the supplemental fund used as matching grants.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 18:41-18:52
“They've proven over two years that they have no ability to raise money.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 19:25-19:29
“We have vacant state buildings all around the square. But yep, we're going to use taxpayer money to fund lease and office for $100,000 a…”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 20:25-20:37
“We figure, why don't they put it out for an rfp?”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 21:30-21:34
“My county board can live stream their county board hearings. They're not spending a million dollars a year.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 21:44-21:51
“We found that back in 1993, JCLO voted to do an RFP.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 22:56-23:06
“You can go to the casino right now, some of the grander or casinos in the state of Wisconsin and do it.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 24:16-24:24
“It makes sense to actually have regulations in Wisconsin [for online betting].”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 25:07-25:12
“I'm pretty sure the compacts would have to be open back then.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 25:28-25:33
“There's one [data center] being built just south of my district.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 26:30-26:33
“They're going to destroy roads. And in my county, just because trucks are. Trucks are running over. Over the roads.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 26:55-27:03
“A lot of the newer [data centers] they're building aren't using. Don't use the water that some of the previous ones done.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 27:39-27:47
“We're not producing enough power in Wisconsin to a massive use of power.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 28:17-28:24
“It's really good for the local economy to build them [data centers].”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 28:56-29:03
“There's a huge positive economic impact [from building data centers].”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 29:24-29:28
“The legislature's leadership has kept Wisconsin in good shape, unlike Minnesota, which raised taxes and went into a deficit.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 31:05-31:11
“We have 14 years of providing and reducing taxes in Wisconsin.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 31:05-31:11
“We've reduced your income taxes substantially over the last eight years in spite of Governor Ebers being in office.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 31:29-31:38
“We've invested into health care, we've invested into roads, we've invested into schools.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 31:40-31:46
“Having a two and a half billion dollar surplus at the end just shows how responsible we've been over the last eight years.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 31:56-32:04
“We've been very responsible since then, you know, not sticking $7 billion into ongoing expenses and causing shortfalls for the future.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 32:48-32:59
“We continue to reduce taxes and our revenues continue to go up because we're making a better economy here in Wisconsin.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 33:08-33:16
“We are competing with Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, which have lower income taxes than Wisconsin.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 37:59-38:03
“We lowered the second tax bracket in our previous budget to help retirees stay in the state.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 38:22-38:27
“There was a huge exodus from K12 into private schools because parents realized that, oh my goodness, this is what they're teaching our kids.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 43:08-43:19
“We need to continue to work on improving standards, why we tried to reinstate the cut scores or use that terminology.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 43:57-44:09
“Part of those federal funds were cut to the counties and they don't actually have to do this.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 45:49-45:55
“Their funding ends October of this year.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 45:55-46:01
“Currently the state's still under the 6%, but barely. It's quite marginal.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 46:51-46:57
“I think it was about 500 million of it was a result of capital gains tax.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 47:39-47:45
“When we passed our original budget we had a $800 million projected surplus.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 48:35-48:40
“Just because we don't have an elections committee doesn't make it hard to pass election bills. We have government ops committee, local…”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 51:01-51:15
“I think we do a fairly good job in Wisconsin. You know, we have 1800 different municipalities who have trade clerks. We have a lot of…”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 52:27-52:41
“Federalizing our elections, I think it's unconstitutional.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 52:53-52:59
“We could have all mail out ballots to everybody over the age of 18, which would be a nightmare and be all kinds of fraud.”
WisPolitics-State Affairs luncheon with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu | Uploaded February 20, 2026 | 53:24-53:35